One's own business
by ilexx
Summary: Oneshot on Seefra, just three of them, right after The Weight II.Umm... okay, not a oneshot any more. Here is the next chapter: Trance. And the next one: Rhade. And finally Dylan.
1. Chapter 1

I don't owe anything about Andromeda.  
Set between The Weight II and Phear Phactor...

**One's own business**

She carelessly throws her jacket into a corner. It was meant to hit a chair, but she misses and it lands on deck. She doesn't care. Quickly she picks up a plate, shovelling some fruit onto it. With it and a glass of water in her hands she slowly approaches the narrow couch, letting herself fall down on it uncermoniously.Without bothering to cut the fruit, she simply chooses one, biting into it, savouring the coolness and sweetness of its taste. She feels herself relax after the dryness of the day, after the staleness of the bar. Her head sinks back against the bulkhead and she tiredly closes her eyes.

Another day in Paradise gone by... It's becoming routine: she is running cargo, accepting just about every job she's being offered, slowly coming to terms with Seefra, each day ending up with a little more money in her pockets, a little more resigned to her fate, a little more... indifferent? Not there yet, but she's working on it.

The only thing she's wondering about is the way she's making a habit of heading for the bar first thing after concluding the day's business. She doesn't drink, doesn't play cards, doesn't know anyone there and has no intention of getting acquainted with somebody, either. The business she needs to make a living she gets from the bartender, who would keep her informed on opportunities either way: his share on the deals she strikes is handsome. There is nothing in there for her... Nothing but the two shadows of her past, seated at the bar, downing one drink after another each evening when she walks in.

She never joins them, barely nods a greeting before withdrawing to a remote, shady corner, waiting for her meal to arrive – that she mostly leaves untouched after the first two glances at it. She can afford better things on the _Maru_, meanwhile. She silently observes the two of them getting drunk and drunker, throwing furtive glances at her, while she is betting with herself on the amount of time left until the one of them gets up and leaves with at least two girls clinging to his arms and giggling at each other.

The other stays, no longer prying in her direction, his drinks coming in more and more frequently – and looking all as if he's had them made a double. Once alone, he always seems to be in a hurry to drink himself into oblivion, his back turned towards her, his eyes never leaving his hands tightly closed around the glass he clings to.

She waits, night after night, for him to stop drinking, to turn around and join her, to finally say something. Anything. He doesn't. And she's growing tired...

Tired of waiting to hear him start apologizing, explaining, to expect from him at least some gentle words that he'll never say, as she knows by now... For him to do that, he would have to restart thinking about something else than himself, and this is obviously an ability he lost forgood, it seems. If he ever had it.

She knows she needs to stop doing that, going there, watching him... them, waiting. But she can't, not yet. She can't identify the feeling, some kind of crazy, hating love, she suspects, making her come and watch them, while urging her to start minding her own business, to stop being torn between her wish to join or lose them forever, dreaming of them or starting to live her own life...

And yet she knows that during the first week after meeting them again, she had tried everything, all tricks in the book to overcome the gap. She never had expected the Nietzschean to notice, stranded or not – noticing a hand stretched out in friendship was not something coming to Nietzscheans naturally. But **him**... Him she had known different.

She really tried them all, used even all so-called ‚woman's weapons' at her disposal (something she had never tried before on him), even shed a tear, still: he didn't move.

He seems to like the silence established between them, seems wrapped up in some sort of a sublime, superb indifference he only seldom leaves to show some compassion towards Trance, who – frankly – really seems to need it. But she needs it, too – and does no longer know what to do to get it, from whom if not from him. After all, he is the cause for... everything, but that she doesn't dare to tell him. Not yet, anyway. Her lack of courage though, it puzzles her – who is used to normally measure her courage at the violence of thunderstorms. So why doesn't she then dare to strike out at him? Because he's down and you just don't kick someone down? Doesn't seem to stop anyone else on Seefra...

And so she goes on waiting, night after night, in mourning: for him, her lost self-esteem... for all of them... the times when she was still willing to do everything for them, for him. She would have followed him to hell and back, and in the end she did, followed him to the Abyss, ready to stay by his side in the universe's coldest, most frozen spots – regardless of her fear of the darkness, her dislike for cold.

Well, she had found warmth on Seefra, far away from him. Or so she thinks with a sad, ironic smile. But he had to show up and take that away from her, too.

Every night she then reaches the point when she doesn't care anymore. When she is tired of waiting. It happens every night, and then she gets up and leaves, heading for the _Maru_. Each night it's the only time when she gets a glimpse of his eyes, finally rising to meet hers in the mirror hanging behind the counter. She feels his gaze lingering on her withdrawing back, but she never stops on her walk back home to her ship.

Getting ready for bed, brushing her teeth, combing her hair, watching her image in the mirror she suddenly realizes with cold fury that she no longer wants to think about ways to break the ice between them. She is through with loving them in silence, cursing him on late nights, with being afraid of forgetting his face and his voice, of breaking the mirror from which his image is slowly fading away. She is after all not only someone he used to know, one of his crew, his XO. She is also a woman and has long learned the lesson that – among other things – this also means that you can let them break your heart, time and again, and still make it through alive.

For just an instant her eyes meet her own gaze in the mirror; she sees their hard, harsh look – and then she sees them warming up, only to harden back as if the softening had been nothing but a mirage. No. She no longer cares.

She curls up in her bed, burying herself under a plaid, closing her eyes with determination. Finally sleep takes over. But at the very last moment before drifting off an errant thought blossoms up at the back of her head:

_Don't fool yourself on this. Even if you don't care – you do mind, you know..._


	2. Chapter 2

One of my reviewers suggested to show everyone's POV at this point. I thought it a very good idea. So here is Trance.

And: thank you, max.

**Reflections of a Sun**

I feel constantly dizzy, light-headed, itchy, dry. As if there were not enough space for me around here, not enough room within my own skin. As if I have been spending too much time in the heat. And I know the feeling to not be appropriate, although I don't know why. And none of them can tell me. Or will.

I don't have the strength to stick around them closely. They hurt me. It hurts to see them all. Therefore I choose to stay on this huge, dead spaceship. It used to be my home. It used to be my friend. And now it just no longer is... anything at all. That hurts, too. But from time to time she shows up, not the real her, but at least something, someone who one day may become her again. And then I do hurt less, although I keep the feeling of all being too tight, too raspy and too cold.

I can't describe the sorrow that threatens to engulf me, when I look at Rhade. He used to be our tower of strength, our voice of reason, our chance for a bright, peaceful future with the Nietzscheans, those most beautiful beasts of all. That much I remember of him: the most gentle sharpness, the most enlightened power... it used to be his own. Among his race of giants throwing temper tantrums at the slightest provocation, he was the softest titan – Prometheus reborn.

The power and the sharpness, they are still here. But the reason, the fairness and compassion are gone. And with them our hope. His scars are much too tender for caresses, and every outstretched hand jis ust another step towards his own self-pity...

My daring, loyal, caring friend – how do I reach you? Can I still reach you? Can they? And if – would they care to do so?

I look at Beka and I don't recognise her. I see her frame, her face, but her light is gone. Of them all she was the one most vividly, most passionately, most convincingly alive. I've never seen such uncompromising thirst, such lust, hunger for life in another sentient being. Nor have I ever seen it displayed with such a candid, innocent joy of simply... living. She used to shine so bright. And now she's only hanging in there, surviving coldly, in a detached manner, clinging to her existence as if it were a value in itself. It isn't. It's what she made of it that made it so important, so utterly consuming all obstacles, all traps and... yes, also all evil. I want you back, my fiery, brave lion-heart. And I sometimes have the feeling that I just need to tell you, and that – if told – you will reach deep inside of your being and bring it all back to us. Yet I'm afraid to do so. Because I also fear you, Beka. I'm afraid to tell you, I'm afraid for you. And I'm afraid of you... Of what you'd do if I tell you. What if you don't come back? I wonder if by now there is another you, who would prove more powerful. And wonder about what this other you would be doing – to him.

No, I don't wonder. I know what this part of you would do to Dylan. I sometimes see it lurking under your calm surface, barely able to suppress the urge to rip him apart, to tear his heart out. There is no need, Beka. His heart is already gone from where it rightly should be. It went away the day you two met again. I was there, remember? I saw him searching your eyes, for what I'm not sure. But I am sure that he never found it. You were too busy being angry with him to look. But I did. It was like watching a deep-blue, sunny sea freeze over. The ice never melted since. He used to be the very essence of warmth – and now he's mainly just dead-cold, chilled to the bone. And I don't dare to warm him up, because I somehow feel that this layer of ice just keeps him from bleeding out. I might be wrong, but if I'm not, I'll lose him to all these clouds of darkness, of pain, and guilt, and sorrow. And that I couldn't bear.

What's worse: there must be another part of me out there, one that is still missing. I know it, I can feel it. Yet looking at them all, at what they're here on Seefra, I don't dare to search for this most important, most vital part of us.

I wish I knew who I am, **what** I am exactly. I hurt to see them hurting. I fear it might have been me who made them hurting so much. I'm scared, I'm tired, I'm angry. With me. With them. How dare they? How dare they make me hurt that much?

I so wish I knew... For then I would maybe be able to throw all those wicker dummies populating my conscience away from some high bridge, those forgotten phantoms, those shadows of my past that keep haunting me.

I wish I could simply scratch out all those murmured names I used to know in some other universe, I wish I knew how to forget those tender eyes and faces.

I should be able to do so, to throw them all away like some broken dolls, some harlequins damaged by memories.

I wish I could burn out the beloved faces of those better times, I wish I could walk with ease towards some nonchalantly approaching sun . And bear to watch them, impassively and haughty, as they cross some frozen river to some other side.

I wish I could... But I can't. Because they're mine to love.


	3. Chapter 3

Rhade's POV.

**Beyond Good And Evil**

I swallow down one drink after another, pretending to keep him company, while in reality all we do in here night after night is sharing our mutual disgust. At least it keeps me from talking.

I'd rather not talk. Especially not to him. There's nothing more to say. And I don't trust my voice.

As of lately I'm almost unable to still recognise it. It sounds like the worn-out voices of those men too tired to keep walking the streets in a vain attempt to find someone still willing to listen to them. I'm one of them. Too tired to understand the things he tries to tell me.

I almost cannot hear him. And he doesn't hear me. But how can one still hear the questions, well-knowing that nobody will answer while we're lost in all this hate?

The hate. I'm tired of it. And yet, it feels comfortable. I hate having to spend so much of my time with so many people forced to play more and more shaky parts in the universe's most shabby dancing-hall, where everyone dances alone.

By Drago's bones, there really is nothing more left for me. Nothing but this hate, some wounds and this part I'm playing: the drunk, the ladies' man, the hired gun. At least this one has been written especially for me. Fits like a glove – and to no avail.

There is no way out; not unless I tell him, not unless I tell her that I'm afraid, but of what? Truth is that I'm mainly afraid that both have gone crazy, that I'm all alone on this sickening world where nobody cares. The prayers I used to have, I no longer understand them. The words I believed in, I can hear them no longer.

I wish I'd had the courage to simply leave this bar, to make him come with me, to go over to her and ask her along, to shout at both of them like an inconsiderate child, who's been denied their understanding. I wish that I could swallow down my pride and ask for help. I think I tried a few times, I even think I tried a few times too loudly, too intensely, but they didn't even make an effort to listen to the end.

By the Divine, how did I ever managed to get such rotten hand? How am I supposed to play this? What am I to do here, on this crazy world created by some childish god, who enjoys himself while letting his rusty hammer to pitilessly fell his very own children? How long is this game going to last?

I'm lost in a mad world, full of maddening people, much too loudly shouting out their ideas to some crazy folk, calling for revenge when you refuse to follow. Some of them lose themselves in some awkward details, others couldn't care less and want just to join the ballet, to get lost in the dancing crowds led by those strange prophets and even stranger healers who don't get to cure anything at all. Yeah, I know, that's all part of the game: to just look at mistakes without taking action, but I'm sick of playing.

Maybe they could help, but I just can't talk to them; everyt time I try, my eyes are getting misty. I can't even shout out, there's a claw on my throat. And even if I could, what should they do? What can they do?

Sometimes it is plain wrong to not run while the running is good, to trust one's lucky star to the bitter end, and not fall on one's sword when all is lost and gone. There are moments in life when hope is just another word for betrayal. He knows it, he feels it, no matter how often he tells me otherwise. And he'll never forgive himself for all that happened back there, at Arkology. What can a man still do who barely seems able to live with himself? I know it: not much, just laugh at hell and order another drink. That's what.

And she... Sometimes it's even worse to do run while the running is good. I know, she reconsidered... So what? There are mistakes in life that you cannot undo. She broke my trust and the little man's heart when she left us. And him... she broke his back and she damn' well knows it. He should have made her stay, I don't know why he didn't. Nor does she, I suspect. And she's too strong a woman and too fierce a fighter – and not honest enough to herself – to ever forgive him for having let her run.

Such a sad, sad joke. Such a tasteless comedy. Everyone would lose his sense of humour over something like this. I did. I'll never forgive her for leaving. I'll never forgive him for not objecting to it. I'll never forgive them both for having lost their fight. I won't forgive myself for being inferior.

And yet, I stick around and play my part. I'm not gonna die over this. Not today, at least.


	4. Chapter 4

And finally: Dylan

**Waiting for the click**

Rhade had even asked him to join him and the girls, but he had refused flatly. He can't leave right now. He hasn't heard the click yet. The click in his head that makes all of it go away. He hasn't heard the click and wishes he wouldn't need that long (so much longer than the Nietzschean) to push himself aside. And wishes he wouldn't have to do it again alone. But he hadn't dared to ask him to stay longer. He hadn't dared to see the contempt on the dark face, the sardonic gleam in those Nietzschean eyes. Nor does he dare to leave, to turn around and face her before he's heard the click.

Before he came here tonight, he had sworn to tell him, to talk to him and ask him to forget all that could be forgotten, even if not forgiven. To forget how much time they'd spent misunderstanding each other, to not waste more hours on asking themselves how all of this could have happened. And most of all forget the many, many times they spent killing their own resolve and courage with mighty blows of 'why?s'. But then he didn't do it.

It would have been better to just stay tonight onboard the _Andromeda_. Since he had found her, he hadn't done it often. He should have stayed with her. But he can't do it. He is too tired to spend yet another night painfully missing Rommie, crying in the dark like a scared, lonely child longing for his home, longing for his ship, talking to empty walls, hiding himself away from her memory and still catching glimpses of her, of her smile in his mind, hearing her voice's echo ring through deserted corridors, feeling himself become a shadow of himself, a shadow of her shadow.

It ends every time in an exhausted sleep haunted by countless nightmares that send him running like a madman to Command, where there is... nothing. No-one. Just Trance. Who waits for him with big, warm, lonely eyes, a small, desperate smile on her empty face. He doesn't want to hide himself away from her, but he can't stand the blankness of her gaze. He then always tells himself that nothing is lost yet, that there is still hope, that many old volcanoes, that everyone thought dead, had been known to find again their fire. And that the lands they burnt often prove themselves more fertile than before. Looking into Trance's eyes he stubbornly keeps reminding himself of some enchanted sundown he had spent somewhere planet-side, watching the red and the black uniting the skies. Only to then remember that there is no sundown on Seefra.

No, everything is better than another night on the _Andromeda Ascendant_. Even though he knows that chances are pretty high for him to end up here, getting drunk with Rhade, freezing under Beka's gaze, hoping for the click to happen before he loses it all, before he stands up and walks over to her, falling on his knees, making a fool of himself, begging her to forgive him for having let her go, for having wished her back. Even that is better. Or so he thought before.

But now that he is left alone with his empty glass and her eyes in his back, now that the click refuses to happen, he knows he had been wrong. And begins to order drinks more and more in a hurry, desperately fencing off the urge to just go to her and take her in his arms and promise... everything: that he'll explain it all, inventing a new language just for the two of them, one she'd understand, telling her about people splitting up only so they can come together again, asking if she'd heard about this guy who died from not being able to see her anymore. Swearing that should he ever leave her alone again, it'll be just to find her pearls of rain on this dry, dry world, where it never rains, and to fight off the darkness she fears that much, so he'll always see her frame bathing in nothing but bright sunlight. And that from now on, no matter where they'll be, in which universe, he will spend all his strength building her a fief, in which life will rule supreme, of which she'll be the only queen.

Downing his last drink, he raises his head and sees her standing up in a swift move. For a brief moment their eyes meet in the mirror. And then she turnes around without a further glance. And then he hears the click.


End file.
